42 ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW 
Himalayan 
Travel. 
from a house that once stood next to the “ Dutch House ” (the present 
Kew Palace). The former, according to tradition, belonged to Sir 
Richard Levett, who, in 1697, became the owner of the “Dutch 
House” also. 
The most important event of the year 1847, not only to Kew, 
but to botany and horticulture in general, was the despatch of the 
director’s son, Joseph Dalton Hooker, on a “scientific 
journey ” to Northern India. This memorable jour- 
ney, afterwards described in the classic “ Himalayan 
Journals,” occupied three years and four months. So far as English 
horticulture is concerned, the most important part of the journey 
was spent in the Sikkim Himalaya, whence Dr. Hooker first intro- 
duced those magnificent rhododendrons which are now the chief glory 
of many a garden in the warmer parts of the British Isles. Kew 
itself was enriched not only with these and many other living plants, 
but with great quantities of herbarium material and museum objects 
also. 
The first decade of the management of Kew by Sir William 
Hooker witnessed a greater series of changes than can ever, in the 
nature of things, be seen again in a similar period, 
so long as the establishment exists on its present 
basis. His charge, which at first was comprised in fifteen acres, had 
in four years grown to nearly 650 acres. More than half of this con- 
sisted of the Richmond Old Deer Park, which, being let to a tenant 
for grazing purposes, was not open to the public. 
In 1850 the Government Department of Woods and Forests, under 
whose control Kew had hitherto been, was split up, and part of its 
functions given over to the newly instituted “ Board 
of Works and Public Buildings.” The Deer Park was 
retained by the Woods and Forests, but the Botanic 
Garden and Pleasure Grounds of Kew were transferred to the new 
Government department. Shortly afterwards, the director was relieved 
of the care of the Deer Park. Up to the year 1846 a wall, three-quarters 
of a mile long, had divided it from the Pleasure Grounds of Kew. 
This was pulled down, and thus were opened to the view of visitors 
long level stretches of grassland, and the wooded portions of Sion 
Park and Thames bank in the distance. Kew remained under the 
Board of Works until March 31st, 1903, when it was transferred to the 
Board of Agriculture and Fisheries. 
1841 to 1850. 
Board of 
Works. 
